by Jamie Magee
Zale was the second soul that Reveca brought back, not even ten years after she had brought Talon back. The three of them, they were as thick as thieves at first. Zale understood Reveca’s power, and Talon was the brute strength.
It was Zale that encouraged Reveca to bring back more souls, and she did. A lot of them. At first they were all ones Reveca knew from her coven, then more and more.
Somewhere in the middle of that growing empire Talon’s jealousy got the best of him. He and Reveca started to fight. He found reasons to leave with his armies for longer and longer. And finally they took a break.
The thing was, during that break Zale had no issue filling in, keeping Reveca nice and warm at night.
Obviously, for various reasons that didn’t last, and Talon and Reveca moved on—with a new enemy at their back.
Something about King made Talon recall all that hell. Something about the way that Reveca and King were never alone seemed obvious to him.
Right now, he wasn’t in the mood to play this game.
He’d been watching King for some time now. Reveling in the past as he did so. King had all but claimed the last bay as his own personal workspace. That firebird he was building was now parked there, the bike he was building was on a rack, and the parts he was working on for the legitimate business the Club did have were on the table.
King never looked up when the other boys would get wild or even if they threw jokes his way. He didn’t look up when Tisk walked by in next to nothing and purposely bent over in front him. Talon was sure that the only thing that got this boys attention was Cashton.
Each time Cashton would pull in from wherever he ventured off to when the living world could see him, King would breathe in, and then rage would wash over him.
Talon sensed a girl on Cashton but he sure as hell didn’t sense sex, or even an energy mark. Two things that, in his opinion, would give reason for King to be ticked at Cashton.
Another thing that didn’t sit right with Talon was that both those boys were sent to his house by Saige. She treated the Sons like they were some holding pin for the pieces she played in the game of life.
Talon believed Cashton when he told them he had no idea why Saige sent them after him, why he had so many restrictions. The boy’s eyes were too glazed over each and every time he came out of the Veil—high off his ass. He always told Talon he didn’t know why they did that, he just knew he needed to be out. He was fine with being a pawn for the time being though, and he didn’t start shit with the Club so Talon was fine with him, too.
With King, it wasn’t the same. He knew something, and he wasn’t sharing.
Talon nodded for the other guys that were close to the last bay to go into the lounge. Not one of them hesitated to comply.
Slowly, like the predator he was, Talon made his way to the last bay.
King was under the hood of the firebird, didn’t bother to look up when he felt Talon’s presence loom over him.
“You know this isn’t a race, right? There are more…desirable ways to handle what you’re going through.”
“And exactly what am I going through?” King said keeping his gaze on his work.
“Coming back to life.”
“Still dead.”
“Debatable.”
King looked up slowly.
“What? You’re confused about your status?” Talon asked crossing his arms and leaning against the workbench.
“I’m dead. Depleted energy,” King said evenly.
“Maybe if you leave the Boneyard,” Talon said with a smug grin. “Yeah, if you left here you’d be a haunt, a ghost others walked through. Here, though, you’re not.”
King stood from his lean and started to wipe his hands clean.
“It’s the energy,” Talon said. “Or spirits. Hell, I don’t know what the fuck it is. I’m not a witch and would never claim to be.”
“But you use the power,” King pointed out.
Talon glared, hearing the insult dripping from King’s seemingly innocent comment. “The power made me. So yes, I use it.”
“You don’t like witches, though,” King said with a placid expression and a dry tone. “You like to pretend you’re just some badass mortal. I bet you don’t even know what the fuck you’re made of. What death put in your soul.”
Talon pressed his lips together, slightly adjusted his shoulders, a near unnoticeable move his body always made before he struck. Talon kept his cool, though. This King guy was a smooth motherfucker; he was turning the conversation, trying to piss Talon off just so he wouldn’t have talk about himself.
Talon decided to play the game for a second. No. He fucking hated witches. There was only one that he didn’t hate, that he’d do anything for, and that was his woman.
“Fire burns through my essence,” Talon said letting flames come to his dark eyes, that phoenix in him, the one part he loved the most. “I feed off energy. I use energy as a weapon,” he said just before licking his bottom lip, pointing out the vampire side of him. “I sense nature at its core, I’m at one with each and every animal instinct there is. Of course I tend to favor wolves,” Talon said as his voice moved a bit deeper, clearly pointing out the wolf he kept caged deep inside that added aggression that he never really cared to pull out. He was mean enough without it.
Talon jutted his chin up. “Anything else you want to know about me?” That was a dare, bait he wanted King to take.
“I didn’t ask about you,” King said with a wry smirk. “I said you don’t like witches. You don’t understand what they see, which means you sure as fuck don’t understand the land you’re living on. How it’s raw with spiritual energy, how it intersects with other dimensions’ spiritual lands. You don’t get that it’s a fucking miracle that Reveca, a witch, found a place like this to call home.”
Talon narrowed his stare. “You don’t know fucking shit about me—what I do or don’t know. I know this place is just like where Reveca was born. That’s why we’re all here. I know the energy is wacked enough to host haunts like you. I know it’s thick enough that any soul could hide from that unknown power that all local witches seem to fear and respect at once, well, most.” Talon stared for a moment. “So, in effect, if you were a supernatural outlaw it would be one hell of a place to hide. What are you hiding from, King?”
“Not a damn thing.” King said with a slight smile, one that didn’t match the fury in his eyes.
Talon went ridged. “It’s not wise to fucking lie to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” King said with far too much ease.
“When did you die?”
King’s eyes glinted with a doused amusement. “Before time was recorded.”
“How?”
“Battlefield.”
“Time wasn’t recorded, you were on a battlefield, and yet you have no issues rebuilding a 1975 firebird.”
King smirked. “Have you ever been in the Veil? Did you make it that far before this magic you don’t care to understand blessed you?”
“You better watch your fucking tone.”
“Same,” King said matching Talon’s aggression. Oddly, Talon found himself respecting that. At the very least it told him he was not harboring a coward. He hated cowards just as much as Reveca hated addicts.
“No. My woman kept me in her Edge.”
King let a sardonic grin come to him. “You have phoenix energy inside of you. One of their gifts is to move through the Veil if they choose. In all truth, in most cases, they like it better there. That’s the magic you’re ignoring.”
“And you know about this magic because some Rouge told you that? Or did you read it in some storybook?”
“I saw it.”
“Did you.”
“I did. In the Veil. The place that you haven’t seen as of yet apparently.” King crossed his arms. “The Veil is a mistress. It always allows you to live out your fantasies, lulls you so you have no idea that you’re in transition, so that you have no idea that whatever judgment
you come to deep within will plot where your next life will lead you. That practice, though, it’s slow, slower than the seasons. And because it is, souls manifest the worlds they lived in all around them. And they’re good at it. So good that sometimes you can forget you’re dead.”
Talon nearly laughed as he shook his head. This sounded an awful lot like one of Echo’s tall tales. “You’re telling me some haunt hangs out in the Veil, and while he’s figuring out how to judge himself he manifested a garage and taught you how to work on fucking cars.”
“I didn’t say that. All I said was that me putting together a puzzle should not be that shocking to you.”
Even as believable as his story was, Talon wasn’t buying it, not with knowing that Cashton has issues with TVs and cell phones, all that modern shit. Why would a ghost in the Veil choose to recreate worlds and leave out the modern element? Talon decided to let King hide behind his excuse for now, or at the very least find a different way to come at it.
Talon nodded down to the machine King was building, one that any man would have respect for. “You’re putting this car together like it means something to you.”
King just barely furrowed his brow, that all-knowing smile daring to linger on his lips. “What is the point of doing anything unless it means something to you?”
It was a silent standoff for a moment. King clearly pointing out that Talon was not only ignoring part of himself, but the largest part of Reveca, and daring Talon to tell him differently.
Talon wasn’t going to engage that shit. Instead he was going to provoke him, at the very least let him know that King needed to change his course of action before Talon changed it for him.
“Right now, coming from death to life your energy is enhanced. Everything is better. Way better. The smell of a woman, the way her skin feels, the way her body thrives as you explore—it’s better. It’s fucking heaven.”
“I’m well aware of how a woman’s body feels under my touch.”
Talon smirked. “But you’re on some fucking fast right now.”
King only glared.
Talon moved forward, leaned on the hood of the car, then raised his lethal glare. “I can’t even count how many men Reveca has brought back. Can’t count how many times those men came to, saw her, felt all their senses enhanced, felt the hunger for touch…the hunger to devour the sensations of the flesh. They had to touch, had experience touch until they found a way to balance the high they were feeling.”
The entire time Talon was speaking King’s body had turned ridged, his eyes cold, murderous.
Talon laughed. “Of course they never touched my woman, because they knew better. But I can damn sure promise you if the likes of Tisk walked by them in next to nothing and bent over there would have been nothing holding them back. They would have said and done whatever they could just to sink in, feel that heat, bask in how intense the sensation was. They wouldn’t have given a damn that she was a slut. Wouldn’t have cared who was watching. No, they were primal, and took what they wanted when they wanted, no emotion attached.”
Talon squared his shoulders. “Now you see, Saige, she spelled the crap out of Cashton, told Reveca not to leave his side for the first five times he came out. Basically Saige’s spells gripped the boy’s balls and didn’t let him have fun. Now you, she didn’t do that with you. Saige just sent Reveca on a little errand and never looked back…”
“And?”
Talon moved around the car until he was face-to-face, chest-to-chest with King. “It takes a hell of a lot of willpower to resist flesh when you come out, even if you are technically dead. That willpower can only be found in devotion.” Talon tilted his head. “Who are you devoted to? Why have I not had to pull you off every cute piece of ass that’s walked through these doors?”
King’s stoic expression never wavered. “None of your fucking business.”
“Oh it’s my business,” Talon said as he lifted his brow. “We’ve established this is my land, now haven’t we?”
King didn’t say a damn word.
“See, now the smart thing would’ve been to tell me some bullshit story about you having your dick hard for some piece of ass Cashton is chasing. But you didn’t.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Yeah, I do. You’re not the first and you will not be the last son of a bitch that lusts after my woman.” Talon’s cold stare moved over King. “You couldn’t even fucking begin to understand how to handle her.”
“Are you threatened?” King’s tone was even but his eyes glinted with satisfaction.
Talon eased back. “No.” He laughed. “No, I’ve been here before. Seen her get nice and bored with life at large, then out of nowhere some grand scheme comes into play. She gets wild. I get wild. We fight.” He lifted his chin. “When the dust settles, I know where we’ll be. You’re her type. She’s got a thing for big, bad pissed off warriors, the kind that are layers deep and take her a second or two to understand.”
Talon edged back, furrowed his brow. “Someone destroyed her long before I found her. Ripped her fucking heart out. When she found me she was looking to fill a void. I knew that, she knew that. We didn’t give a fuck though. We were having too much fun, still are.”
Talon looked for a reaction in King, some kind of flinch that would back up his gut feeling that King and Reveca knew each other at some point, but the man was rock steady.
Talon wasn’t convinced though, not by a long shot. Somehow someway, either directly or indirectly, King and Reveca had crossed paths. Talon would bet the very ground he was standing on, his Club, on that truth that his gut was screaming at him.
“If you’re holding out for my woman, get the fuck over it. She sees time far differently than the rest of us. Days are seconds to her. By the time she even lets a fantasy of you cross her mind, your virgin rush back into the living world will be over. It will feel just like it did before, good, but not cranked out of your mind good.” He smirked. “I’m telling you if you think Cashton is hitting some piece of ass that has your name on it, you’re wrong, too. I would have sensed that by now. Hell, we all want to know what the hell is up with him, and it ain’t that.” Talon glanced across the lot at Tisk who was in a bikini top and a short skirt sunning herself, making it a point to run the lotion on her hands nice and slow across her chest. “I’m telling you that you letting off some steam, drowning in those sensations, is not a bad thing. It will clear your head out, let you focus on reality, handle the madness of it all. Hell, you might as well do it before Saige trades you in for what she really wants.”
“Trades me,” King said keeping his stare on Talon, not even bothering to notice Tisk, or any of the other girls that thought sunbathing on the back of a bike was a stellar idea.
Talon shrugged. “I don’t trust her, you?”
“I haven’t met the Saige you know.”
Talon noticed the play on words but let it slide. “She knew where you were, sent us to get you. Specifically. And because we did we now have to take souls back to Crass just to keep that secret.” He narrowed his gaze. “What did that fucker do to you? Is that it? He use you as some kind of sex slave and now your head is all jacked up?”
“He damn sure tried,” King said. “It didn’t take him long to figure out I don’t play well with others.”
Talon laughed at that. It was a genuine laugh simply because he heard the threat in King’s tone. He could only image how much hell King had given that foul Lord of Death.
When that laugh settled, Talon said, “The Saige I know is a twisted bitch. If I were you I would damn sure be trying to figure out how I became a pawn of hers.”
“What did she do to you?”
“Me? She just glares mostly, has a few choice words she likes to throw out. It’s what she did to Reveca that pisses me off.”
King’s stare questioned him.
“The Edge, that pause between life and death—it’s not a place where you can keep your sanity long. Everything you know is flipped.
It’s where the true haunts linger. Saige trapped Reveca there.”
“Saige did?” King grilled.
Talon shrugged. “Reveca doesn’t talk much about the beginning. But I know Saige is worse than any backwoods bible thumper when it comes to her faith. This Rapture she’s waiting on, all of these Gods she thinks will rise. All I know is Reveca was forced to use magic that was forbidden and found herself in the Edge. Later, they got her out, but the Edge remained. That bridge between two points of existence. Some souls fly right by it, right by the Veil. They move on as easily as a dreamer moves from scene to scene. Others, the tormented souls, they linger. Then others, they pass it to go to the Veil, for that time of pause.
“All Reveca knows is tormented souls. Saige plays that against Reveca, has her do these little deeds like bringing you out. Apparently if Reveca does so, Saige will lend power or what have you that will help Reveca comfort who her sights are on. I don’t know why Reveca bends so easily to her will, but she does.”
Talon smirked. “That woman doesn’t have a damn thing hanging over my head, and if she did, I’d sure as fuck find a way to move on into that bright light the innocent go into. I’m nobody’s fucking puppet.”
King gave one nod, a nod that led behind Talon. When he turned, he saw Reveca across the lot staring in their direction. She was pissed—anyone could see that. Right then though, Talon didn’t know if she was mad because it was clear he was giving King hell, or if she was mad because all those enhanced senses of hers zoned in on this conversation and she heard every word he said.
Either way, Talon didn’t care. King was overdue for a breakdown of how things were at the Club, and as far as Saige, he meant every damn word. There was no way in hell he would ever live in an immorality where someone had control over him.
No. Way. In. Hell.
Chapter Two